When Luke Chilton was 16, he visited his first escape room. He was in Los Angeles where he worked as a child actor and with one visit, he said he knew it was the perfect business to open as soon as he got home.
On a flight back to Fayetteville, Chilton was on the phone to look at a space and on February 19, 2016, he opened the Escape Room Fayetteville at 3639 Sycamore Dairy Road. 
“It was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done and entrepreneurship is in my blood. My family has owned Omega Gymnastics for 40 years so I have always looked for something to fun to start,” said Chilton, “I missed the high school experience, but I’ve been able to go to school during the week and operate the business as well. I’m 21 now and we’ve been open for five and a half years.”
The premise behind the hugely popular escape rooms is simple. The countdown starts as soon as you enter the room. The clues you unlock lead to another clue and you have 60 minutes with your team to solve the puzzles in order to escape the room. The difficulty lies within the scenarios. Everything is a challenge and nothing could be what it seems. 
“We have five different themed rooms with everything from a serial killer mystery to family friendly. The cool thing about our space and what sets us apart is that we have hidden doors, trap doors and crawl spaces. You would never know starting the game and looking around the room that something could lead to multiple rooms you are escaping from,” said Chilton, “We expanded to a second space when we outgrew the first one. We now have two locations in the same building.”
One of the most recent escape rooms in Fayetteville, Escapology, opened in the Freedom Town Center in 2019. Located at 2770 Freedom Parkway Dr., Escapology incorporates childhood nostalgia with games such as Scooby Doo as one of their family friendly escape rooms. 
“The cast of Scooby Doo is who you hear on the speakers when you unlock a puzzle. Everyone loves it, said Rochelle Gore, general manager, “As far as escape rooms, it’s a growing community, it’s an interactive experience and it’s challenging. It’s a lot of fun.” 
With five different rooms with different themes, story lines and missions, Escapology is also seeing an influx of guests coming out of the pandemic. 
“It might be our marketing, it might be people are looking for something to do, but we’ve had a huge spike upwards with our business especially coming out of Covid. We are a private venue so we are able to provide social distancing and a safe experience,” said Gore. “We want families to enjoy coming here. Of course, over time the rooms will change. We try to keep things new. If a guest plays all five rooms, they can come back to play the new ones. We try to keep everything lively and fresh.”
Another escape room venue that is seeing an upsurge in “escapers,” or escape room enthusiasts is Xscape Factor at 136A Bow Street in downtown Fayetteville. 
“We have a following of “escapers,” who travel everywhere and plan their trips around escape room experiences. It’s how my wife and I started,” said Lee Bowers, co-owner of Xscape Factor along with his wife Summer Moore, “We used to do game nights at our house and friends told us to try an escape room in Raleigh. We were hooked from that first experience. We started going every weekend and seeking them out. One weekend, we went to eight different escape rooms in Virginia.” 
It was that love and passion for escape rooms that had this military couple want to start their own in Fayetteville, but also to create an original experience.
“Along with the fun ones, we went to some bad ones too as we traveled around so when we decided to open our own, we came up with all the games ourselves,” said Bowers, “Within a month and a half, we were testing out four games. We write and program all of our rooms and our games along with the concepts are completely original. It’s a huge draw to the escape room community.”
With escapers looking for that one of a kind experience, Lee Bowers also said their rooms are authentic, “The rooms are also authentically decorated such as an Al Capone room set the in the 1930s with all furniture and details from that decade and prior. To keep guests coming back, every year, we cycle scenarios and even add chapters to existing rooms.”
Together with their regular play experiences, all three Fayetteville escape room venues also offer birthday parties and corporate team building. The Escape Room Fayetteville has hosted corporate team building events for Verizon, the Fayetteville Woodpeckers, Cape Fear Valley Hospital and others. 
“We can have up to 44 people per hour through our rooms,” said Chilton, “We have a great time doing these types of events for companies.”
Xscape Factor also does corporate training with off-site mobile units, hosting private events for the military, businesses and colleges. 
“We come to their location and set up two tents with three different games. We just did training events at Seymour Johnson AFB and at Fayetteville State,” said Bowers.
Their military background and creative original programming also lends to more than a normal game encounter.
“We do important work for these groups in a fun, active way,” said Bowers, “For instance, we built a game to address the 22 veterans a day who succumb to suicide. We identify warning signs, give contact information to local agencies and address triggers, but it’s all embedded in a fun game designed to educate. Those taking the training are more likely to retain the information because it is brought to them actively where they are solving issues as a group. It means a lot to us and we do a lot of off-site work as well as staying busy downtown.”
Whether it is a company looking for team building or training, couples wanting a fun date night or a group of friends seeking something a bit different, the challenge is set and the countdown begins as soon as you enter the room.  

IF YOU GO
Escape Room Fayetteville
3639 B. Sycamore Dairy Road, Fayetteville
910-920-1781
www.escaperoomfayettevillenc.com 
Hours of Operation: 4-9 p.m. Thursday, 2-11 p.m. Fridays, 12:30 to 11 p.m. Saturdays, noon to 7 p.m. on Sundays.

Escapology
2770 Freedom Parkway Dr., Fayetteville
910-302-6981
www.escapology.com
Hours of Operation: noon to 9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, noon to 11:30 p.m. Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Saturday, noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday.

Xscape Factor 
136-A Bow Street, Fayetteville
910-676-8926
www.xscapefactor.com
Hours of Operation: noon to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, noon to 9 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday. Closed Tuesdays.